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Article Search Advanced Search Iron Man and His Heavy-Metal Hero By Jon D. Witmer May 7, 2008, 03:06 Matthew Libatique, ASC has never shied away from bold strokes in his work, but his latest project, Iron Man, required him to restrain some of his more experimental inclinations. “Typically, I take an aggressive tack to visual language, but on Iron Man, [director] Jon Favreau’s intention was to have the actors do the majority of the work and the camera do less of it,” he says. “I had to view the camera as a facilitator of the actors, not solely of the cinematography. This film, more than any other, altered my way of thinking about my work.” Based on the comic book by Stan Lee and Don Heck that was introduced in 1962, Iron Man tells of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a weapons manufacturer and playboy who undergoes a change of heart and decides to use his engineering wizardry to battle the supervillains he has been arming, albeit indirectly. “I grew up with comics, so I was familiar with the character — I knew he was a cool-looking superhero,” says Libatique. “I also figured there wouldn’t be many opportunities to do the first movie in a superhero franchise, so I seized this one.” When Libatique and Favreau began discussing the project, they confronted the perennial challenge of filming comic-book material: “How do you articulate a comic book’s suspension of disbelief in a film?” muses Libatique. “You have to make it a little more sophisticated, but you still have to honor the comic. It’s a tough game.” Click www.ascmag.com for the whole story. Email this article  Printer friendly page